Can a book about maps really expand a geography junkie’s mind?

The certificate I received for my 3rd-place finish in the North Carolina state level of the 1995 National Geography Bee. On the Map: A Mind-expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks
by Simon Garfield

Published by Gotham Books
New York, 2012

I have always been a geography junkie. Well, at least since 2nd grade, anyway. That’s when my Aunt Linda gave me a Fisher-Price “Discovery Map” of the United States. Each state had a small hole in it that displayed a picture, and on the left-hand side of the map that was a light-blue dial. As you turned the dial, the pictures displayed a different piece of info for each state, including its capital—which is how I learned the capitals of all 50 states by the age of 8.

That map was probably the foundation of the geography knowledge that led me to win my middle school’s geography bee…